Major League Baseball launched its replay system at Wrigley Field for Thursday night’s Chicago Cubs-Philadelphia Phillies game . . . sort of. There were no controversial home runs in the Cubs’ dramatic 6-4 victory — merely Aramis Ramirez’s routine, eighth-inning game-winning grand slam and Mike Fontenot’s solo shot to start the five-run rally — so there was no need to check the videotape.

Before the year ends, though — probably when the Cubs are just a few outs from clinching a World Series trip — could it be the Lovable Losers’ destiny to have an apparently harmless foul ball changed (after an excruciatingly long review) to a series-losing home run?

If that thought isn’t at least in the back of your mind, you’re not a long-suffering fan.
OK, maybe that thought hasn’t been in your mind at all (until now), but this one might be: “Booo!’’

If so, you really are a Cubs fan.

The best team in baseball just came off a 7-2 road trip to face a good Philly club. When Alfonso Soriano couldn’t catch Chase Utley’s bloop to left field in Thursday’s fifth inning, Soriano was booed by a sizable minority of the self-proclaimed “most loyal fans in sports.’’

Obviously, every one of the 40,000-plus folks at Wrigley expected (demanded?) a Cubs victory. Not just Thursday but in every game from here on in, thus completing a 112-50 regular-season warmup to championship glory.

Obama, Chicago’s own Democratic presidential nominee, likely cost himself a few Cubbieland votes with his now-infamous statement on ESPN: “You go to Wrigley Field, you have a beer . . . beautiful people up there . . . people aren’t watching the game. It’s not serious. White Sox, that’s baseball.’’

Two things leapt to mind when I heard him say that:

1. It was nice to hear a politician — any politician — take a side instead of boringly playing it down the middle.

2. I got what Obama was saying, but he was only partially right.
Yes, Wrigley Field is populated by lots of Blackberry-texting, beer-swilling, flyball-misjudging tourists. Yes, it’s a hangout for “beautiful people’’ — casual fans looking for casual relationships with other casual fans.

Rather than being “not serious’’ about baseball as Obama claimed, however, the Angry Confines increasingly have become extremely serious. Too serious, even.

Plenty of Cubs fans cheer at all the right moments and plenty are every bit as into games as their South Side counterparts. Plenty also boo pretty much anything and anybody — even an All-Star who has done some pretty amazing things during his two seasons as the Cubs’ left fielder.

That the booing took place in the fifth inning of the 134th game for a team 34 games over .500 and running away with the division title . . . well, it made the fans look silly.

As for some of the other areas of concern I mentioned way back in my first paragraph . . .

It says here that Zambrano will settle down by October and that Fukudome’s all-around solid play makes it easier to accept the fact that he has become an undependable hitter.

Also, it’s quite possible the Cubs will run into very good starting pitching in the postseason. In fact, it’s probable because teams rarely make the playoffs unless they can pitch. Arizona (Brandon Webb, Dan Haren, Randy Johnson) and Milwaukee (CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets) would be especially dangerous in an arms battle.

Thursday, Cole Hamels was dominant for Philly in outperforming Cubs co-ace Ryan Dempster, showing again that great pitching can overcome even the league’s highest-scoring lineup. But the Cubs rocked two relievers in the eighth and the

Phillies managed nothing against Kerry Wood and the rest of the Chicago bullpen.

The relief corps figures to be a major advantage for the Cubs regardless of their postseason opponent. Oh, and their rotation isn’t bad, either.

As for history, well, there’s nothing these Cubs can do about that other than win to create new history.

“Nobody here was alive 100 years ago when the Cubs last won the World Series and nobody was alive when the Cubs last won the pennant,’’ said shortstop Ryan Theriot. (He apparently wasn’t counting manager Lou Piniella, who celebrated his 65th birthday Thursday and was 2 years old when the team lost the 1945 World Series to Detroit.)

“Those jinxes and curses from a million years ago don’t mean anything to us.’’

Ah, but they do seem to mean something to the ever-so-serious Cubbie fans of today.

Mike Nadel (mikenadel@sbcglobal.net) is the Chicago sports columnist for GateHouse News Service. Read his blog, The Baldest Truth, at www.thebaldesttruth.com.

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